My name is Bjørn Pedersen and I started as a PhD-student at NMBU in august 2020. I have a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the university of Stavanger and a master’s degree in biotechnology from NMBU. The main theme of the PhD-project is the development of an enzymatic toolbox for treatment of fucoidan to produce defined oligomers. Fucoidan is a complex carbohydrate found in brown seaweeds and has been reported to have a wide range of bioactivities like immune modulation, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-coagulant and a number of cancer inhibitory effects. I am part of the Bioprocess Technology and Biorefining (BioRef) group at NMBU and Svein Jarle Horn is my main supervisor. The project is also part of the Norwegian Seaweed Biorefinery Platform.
